‘Mission: Impossible’ Continues to Be the Action Series for Generation X

There are plenty of long-running franchises still going at movie theaters like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Fast & Furious.” But aside from James Bond, there isn’t one that has lasted as long and with such staying power as Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” series — and the Gen Xers who grew up with the IMF’s leading man are to thank for that.

As the sixth installment in the franchise, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” opened to a $61.5 million launch this weekend, Paramount reported that 59 percent of opening night audiences were over the age of 35, with 35-49 being the top age group.

That age breakdown is consistent with that of the last installment of the franchise, “Rogue Nation,” which came out in 2015. According to data provided by movie analytics firm Movio, “Rogue Nation” performed over the industry-wide average with males over the age of 40, while millennials ages 18-30 showed up below the nationwide average.

By comparison, the latest installment of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, 2017’s “The Fate of the Furious,” was far more driven by millennials. While males in age groups 40 and over showed up at or below the industry average, “Fate” overperformed with both male and female moviegoers age 18-30. On top of that, “Rogue Nation” audiences and opening night audiences for “Fallout” were approximately 55 percent Caucasian, compared to 41 percent for “Fate,” indicating a more ethnically mixed crowd for the franchise featuring Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and Ludacris.

And it couldn’t come at a better time for Paramount, as this is the first “M:I” film released under CEO Jim Gianopulos, as he works to recover the studio’s plummeting box office numbers. While the Melrose studio only has a 5 percent market share so far this year with $346.5 million grossed domestically, “Fallout” and other major releases like “Bumblebee” and “Overlord” should push annual totals past the $534 million Paramount made last year, by far its worst performance since the turn of the century.

“When you include the TV show the films are based on, ‘Mission: Impossible’ is over 40 years old, and the first film came out 22 years ago, so it’s definitely a bigger film for the Gen X crowd,” said Boxoffice.com analyst Shawn Robbins prior to the film’s release. Robbins also noted that Cruise, having appeared in films like “Top Gun” prior to starting “M:I,” had been known as a box office star in the ’80s and ’90s, making him a big name for moviegoers who grew up in those decades.

That doesn’t mean that millennials will be completely ignoring “Mission: Impossible.” The film has an incredibly strong word of mouth, holding a 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and the first A from CinemaScore polls in the franchise’s history.

“When ‘Rogue Nation’ came out, we saw the same numbers with older males showing up predominantly in the opening weekend,” said Paramount domestic distribution head Kyle Davies. “But over the course of August, the age groups tended to even out as we saw younger and female audiences show up with the word of mouth. We’re expecting the demographics to even out in the same way with ‘Fallout.'”

But nonetheless, the Gen Xers who have followed Ethan Hunt since 1996 have shown their loyalty again this weekend, proving that “Mission: Impossible” is a mission they will always choose to accept.

'Mission: Impossible' - 10 Stunts That Make Us Think Tom Cruise Has a Death Wish (Photos)

No matter what the situation, Tom Cruise is committed to making his movies feel as realistic as possible. But sometimes, it feels like he takes it a little bit too far, to the point that his "Mission: Impossible" co-star Simon Pegg says that the biggest difference between watching him do the stunts on set and watching them in the film is that the audience "knows that Tom lives in the end." Here are some of the ways Cruise has risked life and limb for his craft.

The Last Samurai (2003)After eight months of rigorous martial arts and katana training, Cruise climbed aboard a mechanical horse for a makeshift battlefield joust against co-star Hiroyuki Sanada. But an error in Sanada's mechanical horse caused it to stop farther than the crew intended, and Cruise's neck nearly collided with Sanada's sword. Decapitation? Who's to say. But would Cruise have broken his neck if that sword got any closer? Quite likely.

Mission: Impossible II (2000)In one armrest-clutching shot, Ethan Hunt stops a knife from being driven right into his eye. When it was filmed, Cruise shocked director John Woo when he said he wanted to be involved in the shot with no special effects. Like "The Last Samurai," the blade is dulled, but it's attached to a cable to make sure that Cruise didn't need that "Valkyrie" eyepatch eight years in advance.

"MI2" also had one of Cruise's most famous scenes: the opening of the film where Ethan climbs up a cliff with no gear. But while Cruise did have digitally removed gear he used during filming, he did tear a muscle in his shoulder while filming the scene, which included a shot of him clinging to the sheer rock face while facing outward over the huge drop below.

Mission: Impossible III (2003)Three years later, Cruise worked with J.J. Abrams on a scene in which Ethan falls off of the garden wall of the Vatican while suspended by a brake cable that will stop him an inch from the ground. In reality, the cable holding Cruise back from a bone-crushing meeting with the ground was held on the other end by a bevy of strong crew members

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)An instantly iconic action scene for both Cruise and the genre as a whole was Ethan's infamous attempt to scale the Burj Khalifa. While Cruise was harnessed, he climbed, dropped, and swung around the side of the half-mile high skyscraper for eight days to get the shots seen in the film.

Jack Reacher (2012)Before working together on "Mission: Impossible," Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie worked on this action film in which Cruise did all the car chase scenes on his own. Yes, even the parts where he's smashing into walls and other cars. Cruise went on to use his stunt driving training to power slide through narrow alleys in "Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation" while cameras attached to the windshield make it nearly impossible to see the road.

Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation (2015)That's not a green screen. While Cruise is attached by a safety harness that's digitally removed, he really is clinging to the side of a plane as it takes off. Cruise has said that between the g-forces of the takeoff and the wind blasting in his face, he nearly forgot to say his line while holding on to the plane.

In the underwater scene in "Rogue Nation" where Ethan has to hold his breath for over six minutes, Cruise didn't actually have to hold his breath as long to film the scene since they could use effects and takes. But to prove to the safety crew that he could be filmed for several minutes at a time without them having to worry about him, Cruise did learn how to hold his breath for six minutes

"Mission: Impossible -- Fallout" (2018)Now, in the latest "Mission: Impossible" film, Cruise goes from car chases to helicopter chases. In an interview with Graham Norton, Cruise says he spent two years getting his helicopter license and preparing for the scene, which involves a close range, low altitude chase through the mountains of New Zealand with co-star Henry Cavill. "There was a point where I genuinely thought... 'At least I get killed by Tom Cruise. That'll look good in the papers,'" Cavill said.

And that's not the only death-defying stunt he does in the film. At CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Cruise explained how he jumped 25,000 feet out of a plane over 100 times for another aerial stunt sequence while wearing military breathing equipment that allowed him to skydive at such high altitudes.

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Sometimes Tom Cruise is a little too committed to realism

No matter what the situation, Tom Cruise is committed to making his movies feel as realistic as possible. But sometimes, it feels like he takes it a little bit too far, to the point that his "Mission: Impossible" co-star Simon Pegg says that the biggest difference between watching him do the stunts on set and watching them in the film is that the audience "knows that Tom lives in the end." Here are some of the ways Cruise has risked life and limb for his craft.